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Kaye Ballard

June 5, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Kaye Ballard
Recorded June 1, 2007

LISTEN (Running time: 36:56. 33.7 MB)

CHRISTOPHER PURDY WITH KAYE BALLARD

Eric French, the indispensable engineer who helps me with these interviews, said to me the other day: “Dude. What’s up with all the death and politico stuff?” And I realized that we’ve been heavy on grief counselors and amnesty advocates and death penalty opponents and the wonderful but serious conversationst hat go with those subjects.

Then a new book caught my eye in the library, “How I Lost 10 Pounds in 53 Years” by Kaye Ballard. Born in Cleveland eighty-one years ago, Kaye Ballard (Caterina Ballotta) has done TV series (The Mothers in Law, The Doris Day Show), Broadway (The Golden Apple; Carnival; Molly; Nunsense) Vegas, clubs, pictures, you name it. She talks about her life in show business going back to her days with Spike Jones and His Band in the 1940s, and mentions her big break at Columbus’s Club Gloria. We’ll hear about her famous friends with whom she worked: Bette Davis, Desi Arnaz, Fred Ebb, Doris Day, Marc Blitzstein, Lenny Bruce, Jimmy Durante, and Lucille Ball among them, and she reminds us of great entertainers forgotten today: people such as Billy DeWolfe and Virginia Graham .

If you love showbiz you’ll love this conversation. If you don’t love showbiz, get over yourself, listen anyway and find How I Lost 10 Pounds in 53 Years.

With thanks as always to Eric French!

Categories: Audio · interview

The Sound of radio

April 19, 2007 · Leave a Comment

As WOSU Public Media enters into a new era and takes on the challenge of incorporating new and exciting types of programming, quality, which should never play second fiddle to innovation, is still the primary focus. The purpose of public media is to offer informative and entertaining programming that is of the utmost quality, not necessarily for the purpose of attracting sponsorship, but to satisfy its viewers. Publicly funded organizations aren’t off the hook of accountability to corporate sponsors; rather, they’re accountable to the public, and therefore bear a much greater burden than most privately funded organizations.

Michael Rathke’s job as Radio Program Director is to ensure this level of quality. He has been here only since December, so Rathke is still learning for himself what this requires at WOSU. But he is no stranger to these types of decisions. Rathke has worked as program director in several metropolitan areas, and is excited about bringing his experience to WOSU’s longstanding tradition of quality. “I was attracted to WOSU first because it offers two separate radio program services, and second, because the staff and management of WOSU are recognized nationally.”

Rathke’s job is to ensure quality, and that means sometimes he’s faced with extremely difficult decisions. Alluding to competition offering satellite and Internet radio, he says, “People can listen to any public broadcast that they want every morning, so WOSU needs to offer programming that is not only good, but unique, to stay competitive.”

In order to ensure this level of quality, Rathke spends the majority of his time paying strict attention to “the sound of the program.” He means this in a technical sense, equating the sound almost completely with the production value of a program. Since the majority of radio hosts on WOSU programming are seasoned veterans, he doesn’t need to spend much time evaluating the quality of their performances. In the future, Rathke looks forward to becoming more familiar with WOSU Public Media, merging his attentiveness to quality production with the already stellar cast of hosts to create some truly special programming for the new millennium.

- By Brett Renzenbrink, OSU student intern

Categories: Audio · Classical Music · WOSU AM

YouTube

October 3, 2006 · 2 Comments

YouTube is becoming ubiquitous, a version of kudzu winding its way around the entire Internet, growing at an alarming rate. If you haven’t ventured into this free, video-sharing site, maybe it’s better that you don’t start a habit that is not easy to break.

The site is also making news for the fact that it, like any new Web venture, is straddling the line between greatness and recklessness. If an event can be captured on video, search for it with confidence that you’ll be rewarded. Guitar licks; stupid human tricks; gab fests; sports; and, yes, even material that you may not want to have on your company computer.

On the other hand, the content piled up so quickly that the site’s haphazard management system is always in danger of drowning. When Zinedine Zidane melted down during the World Cup, and used his head as a sledge hammer against an opponent’s chest, dozens, maybe hundreds, of videos sprouted on the site, each with the exact same content, though with different labels.

There is also this nagging problem about copyright. The site cannot police each new post, and adminstrators possibly didn’t foresee that users, given such a wide berth, could upload video that belongs – intellectually speaking – to someone else.

And maybe we should celebrate the loopholes that allow for such great content to be shared. So, for now, pretend that copyright issues will be settled eventually, and enjoy the following list of immortals, all available free. The list comes by way of Terry Teachout, who posts at Arts Journal.com http://www.artsjournal.com/.
It’s a fond tribute to celluloid heroes who never really die. My suggession: enjoy them quickly, for they may not be around for long.
VIDEO
Satchmo (1932)
Satchmo (1933a)
Satchmo (1933b)
Satchmo (1959)
Red Allen*
Ammons/Johnson*
Astaire/Levant*
Chet Atkins*
Chet Baker*
Ballet Mecanique
Count Basie (’40s)
Basie Octet (1950)
Basie/Zoot Sims*
The Beatles
Sidney Bechet
Sir Thomas Beecham*
Robert Benchley
Jack Benny (1)*
Jack Benny (2)*
Chuck Berry*
Jussi Bjoerling
Art Blakey*
Booker T. and MGs
Boswell Sisters (1)
Boswell Sisters (2)*
Bream (Bach)*
Bream (Villa-Lobos)
Bream/Pears
Brubeck Quartet
Buffalo Springfield*
The Byrds*
Alexander Calder
Callas Tosca (1)
Callas Tosca (2)
Cab Calloway
Enrico Caruso
Pablo Casals
Johnny Cash*
Willa Cather
Ray Charles*
Un Chien Andalou
Van Cliburn*
Patsy Cline*
King Cole Trio (1)
King Cole Trio (2)*
King Cole Trio (3)*
Cole/Hawkins/OP
John Coltrane*
Spade Cooley*
Cronkite/JFK*
Bing Crosby*
Crosby/Rhythm Boys
Crosby/Satchmo*
Gyorgy Cziffra
Davis/Coltrane
Davis/Gil Evans*
Davis/Shorter*
de los Angeles*
Dorsey/Rich*
Theodore Dreiser
Peter Drucker*
Jimmy Durante*
Bob Dylan
Edward Elgar
Ellington (’30s)
Ellington (’40s)*
Ellington (’50s)*
Mischa Elman
Bill Evans (1)*
Bill Evans (2)*
Everly Bros.*
Donald Fagen
Emanuel Feuermann
Fischer-Dieskau (1)*
Fischer-Dieskau (2)*
Ella Fitzgerald*
Kirsten Flagstad
Furtwängler (1)
Furtwängler (2)*
Judy Garland*
Erroll Garner*
Nicolai Gedda*
Frank Gilbreth
Dizzy Gillespie*
Tito Gobbi (Falstaff)
Tito Gobbi (Iago)
Benny Goodman
Goodman Orch/Qt
Goodman/Lee
Glenn Gould (1)
Glenn Gould (2)*
Gould/Bernstein
Bobby Hackett*
Hackett/Russell*
Haggart/Bauduc*
Emmylou Harris
Childe Hassam
Hawkins/Carter*
Heifetz (Mozart)
Heifetz (Paganini)
Heifetz (Prokofiev)*
Heifetz (Rachmaninoff)
Heifetz (Wieniawski)
Jimi Hendrix (1)*
Jimi Hendrix (2)*
Woody Herman
Holiday/Basie
Holiday/Satchmo
Holiday/Young
Buddy Holly*
Homer & Jethro*
Horowitz (Bizet)*
Horowitz (Chopin)
Horowitz (Scriabin)
Jammin’ the Blues
Jobim/Regina
George Jones
Jo Jones*
Spike Jones
Stan Kenton*
The Kinks*
Otto Klemperer*
Knappertsbusch*
Koussevitzky*
Gene Krupa
Krupa/O’Day*
Peggy Lee*
Jerry Lee Lewis*
Meade Lux Lewis*
A Little Night Music
Christa Ludwig*
Manhatta
Manone/Venuti*
Martinelli*
Yehudi Menuhin
Michelangeli (1)*
Michelangeli (2)*
Pat Metheny
Glenn Miller
Mills Bros. (1)*
Mills Bros. (2)*
Nathan Milstein
Charles Mingus
MJQ
Thelonious Monk (1)
Thelonious Monk (2)*
Thelonious Monk (3)*
Bill Monroe*
Mravinsky*
V.S. Naipaul*
Nicholas Bros. (1)
Nicholas Bros. (2)*
Nicholas Bros. (3)*
Red Nichols*
Arthur Nikisch*
Red Norvo/BG*
One Froggy Evening
ODJB*
Charlie Parker*
Parker/Gillespie*
Parker/Hawkins*
Anna Pavlova
Oscar Peterson*
Pablo Picasso
Webb Pierce
Poème électronique*
Jackson Pollock
Rosa Ponselle
Powers of Ten
Elvis Presley (1)
Elvis Presley (2)*
Ray Price
Ayn Rand*
Django Reinhardt*
Buddy Rich
Richter (1)
Richter (2)*
Jimmie Rodgers*
Rolling Stones*
Rollins/Jim Hall (1)*
Rollins/Jim Hall (2)*
Franklin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Rose Hobart*
Arthur Rubinstein
Sam & Dave
Schwarzkopf*
Tito Schipa
Segovia (Albéniz)
Segovia (Bach)
Segovia (Falla)
Segovia (Villa-Lobos)
Artie Shaw (1939)
Artie Shaw (1940)
Sinatra (1944)
Sinatra (1965)
Sinatra (1966)
Sinatra/Jobim
Bessie Smith
Sunday in the Park
Steely Dan*
Stokowski*
Richard Strauss*
Joseph Szigeti*
Art Tatum (1)
Art Tatum (2)*
Tatum/Dorseys*
Richard Tauber
Jack Teagarden (1)*
Jack Teagarden (2)*
Teagarden/Satchmo*
Lawrence Tibbett
Mel Tormé
Toscanini (1)
Toscanini (2)*
Merle Travis*
Big Joe Turner*
Mark Twain
Venuti/Lang
Fats Waller
Bruno Walter*
Doc Watson*
Jack Webb*
Weingartner*
Welles Macbeth
Weather Report
The Who (1)*
The Who (2)*
Hank Williams*
Bob Wills (1)*
Bob Wills (2)*
Jonathan Winters*
Frank Lloyd Wright*
Lester Young*
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